PELHAM – The Hopkinton girls were hoping to defend their title and the Hawks did just about everything they could to achieve that.
Senior Anna O’Reilly won the 1,600 meters and ran a leg on the runner-up 4×800 relay with senior Cailey Stockwell, junior Hannah Bennett and freshman Reese Bove, while sophomore Grace Hall successfully defended her crown in the triple jump (34 feet, 9 inches).
Hopkinton finished Sunday’s Division III track and field championship with 57 points, nearly matching the 68 the Hawks accrued last year, but couldn’t match the starpower of Newfound (112 points) and Newmarket (80), and placed third as a team at Pelham’s Harris Family Track.
The Hopkinton girls were the best area team in D-III, while several Capital Area individuals won state titles.
Concord Christian’s Shane Wang broke his own D-III and state record in the boys’ triple jump with a huge leap of 48 feet, 3 inches.
Locals swept the 100-meter dash, with Belmont junior Emma Winslow capturing the girls’ title in 12.86 seconds and Kearsarge senior JJ Davis taking the boys’ 100 in 11.28 seconds.
Davis also anchored Kearsarge’s title-winning 4×100 relay (45.34 seconds) with senior Zach Hodge and juniors Hunter Stanchfield and Sean Stanchfield.
“It was a little different than we had planned,” Hopkinton head coach Rob Rothe said. “We had some tough things with injuries. We didn’t score as many points as we were hoping, I’d say, but they all fought really hard through the whole thing. I couldn’t be more proud of them for all of the hard work that they gave. There was really good competition here today. Some real good athletes, so coming out in third was pretty third. This is one of the biggest teams we’ve brought to states, boys and girls combined, in a long time.”
The Hopkinton girls 4×800 clocked a 10 minute, 17 second relay to finish second to Newmarket, who won in a D-III record time of 9:54.53 (the previous record was set by Hopkinton in 2010) and O’Reilly led a tight race from start to finish to take the 1,600 in 5:34, just beating out Newmarket’s Alanna Hagen (5:35) and Gilford Catherine Stow (5:36).
Bove (second 400), junior Elise Miner (third javelin), Hall (fourth long jump), Stockwell (fourth 800), Bennett (sixth 1,600), junior Natalie Noble (sixth discus), the fourth-place 4×400 (O’Reilly, Stockwell, Bove and Charlotte Presti) and the sixth-place 4×100 (Crissondra Lee-Johnson, Noble, Presti and Jasmyne Lee) also scored points for Hopkinton.
The Hawks were represented by the largest contingent that Rothe has brought to the D-III championship in his six years as the program’s head coach, which has traditionally been recognized for its endurance and distance athletes.
“We’ve been working on that over the years. Trying to get more people in more events,” Rothe said. “It’s tough without real facilities, but we’re continuing to work on that and build on that for the future so we can expand the program and be more competitive.”
“I think we’re all pretty proud of ourselves,” O’Reilly added. “For such a small school and (relatively) not that many people going to states, we all did our part.”
Newport (38) finished fourth, while Belmont and Campbell tied for fifth with 26 points each.
In addition to her title in the 100, Winslow also finished third in the 200, fifth in the triple jump and ran on the second-place 4×100 relay with Jada Edgren, Cate McDonald and Talia Watson to account for all of Belmont’s points.
The Kearsarge girls finished ninth (21.5 points) behind scoring efforts from Molly Ellison (third 800), Kate Cochran (fourth 100 hurdles, fourth high jump), Amelia Lefebvre (sixth 800), Ayla Frenkiewich (tied sixth pole vault) and the third-place 4×400 of Rachel Holderman, Ellie Wimer, Ellison and Lefebvre.
Bishop Brady senior Katie Palmateer – who will continue her running career at the University of New Hampshire next season – finished second in the 3,200 to lead the Giants to a tie for 20th (8 points).
Victoria Kelly (fourth 300 hurdles) and Vanessa Power (tied sixth pole vault) led Winnisquam to 23rd and Hannah Croteau (sixth 100 hurdles) score for Franklin (tied for 25th).
On the boys’ side, Conant won with 81 points, followed by Gilford (78), Monadnock (46), Trinity (34), Campbell (33.5), Kearsarge (32) and Belmont (31) rounding out the top seven.
Davis won the 100 after finishing third in prelims and coming in the top three as a freshman and junior and also finished fifth in the long jump to lead Kearsarge.
Hodge (fourth 400), Hunter Stanchfield (fourth high jump), Gavin Garzia (sixth 1,600) and August Zock (sixth pole vault) also scored for the Cougars.
Belmont was led by Brian Miles (second discus, third shot put), Colby Vetter (second 200, sixth 100), William Riley (third 3,200) and the fifth-place 4×100 (Damien Sanborn, Mitchell Berry, Demetri Kafkoulis and Vetter).
Bishop Brady tied for 13th (14 points) behind a runner-up finish in the 4×100 from Josh Gentchos (also fifth in the 100), Jack Beauchesne (fourth 200), Nick Brown and Alan Yap.
Wang’s victory in the triple jump put Concord Christian in a tie for 18th (10 points), Max Bishop (third javelin) placed for 24th-place Hopkinton (6) and Patrick Goodwin finished fifth in the pole vault for Winnisquam (tied for 26th, 2 points).
The top three finishers automatically qualified for Saturday’s Meet of Champions, which will be held at Sanborn Regional High School and feature the best athletes from all three NHIAA divisions.